nothing gold can stay
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: What a shame, Benjy thought, that he wouldn't live to see this war end.


Written for the Remembrance Day event on the Golden Snitch Forum, using the prompts: peace (word), home (word), scarlet (color), gold (color), Diagon Alley (setting), In Flander's Fields by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, 1915 (poem), wand (object).

 **nothing gold can stay**

" _We are the Dead. Short days ago, we lived."  
\- In Flander's Fields by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, 1915_

Benjy knows he will not live to see this war ends. He knows it like he knows how to breathe, walk or talk – it's obvious to him.

That is the curse of his family, his mother explained the day he turned fifteen. She had cried that day, her eyes trembling as she lifted them to his face.

"My son," she had whispered in a broken voice, "my brave, brave son."

It had almost sounded like a prayer, like she was begging someone or something to free him from his fate.

 _(Benjy doesn't pray anymore – he used to, even went to church every Sunday morning with his mother before Hogwarts)_

 _(he just can't do it anymore, can't believe any being, godly or not, would let this world and its people suffer like this)_

He sees it all the time now – pictures the scene in his mind: death, he knows, will come for him out of nowhere when he expects it least.

It will wear black robes and a white skull mask, and its raised wand will be the last thing Benjy will ever see.

 _(what a shame, he thinks, that he will not live to know peace)_

That will not stop him from fighting – let death come, let it try to take him. Benjy has faced harsher foes, and he may not be able to defeat this one, but he won't die a coward either.

It does funny thing to a man, to know that he's about to die.

That afternoon, he drags Mary down to Diagon Alley for ice-cream.

Mary loves ice-cream, you see, and Benjy's drunk enough alcohol these last weeks that the taste will forever be synonymous with loss for him.

 _(Dorcas' eulogy had been beautiful, but Benjy hadn't been able to cry – he had shed all his tears long ago, leaving him only with a slow burning rage deep in his stomach, itching in his throat so badly it made him want to throw up)_

 _(Dorcas had taught him how to breathe rings of flames with Firewhiskey, back when they had still been students – they had snuck out to Hogsmeade, and had laughed their ways to inebriation until she had decided to teach him the 'neatest trick' she had)_

 _(he thinks he would have loved her, if she hadn't been desperately in love with Caradoc first)_

The Alley is always quiet these days. People don't really hang around here anymore, not when an attack could happen at any time.

The Aurors are overworked and never get there on time, law and bureaucracy restricting their every action. Benjy would know – that's why he let himself be seduced by Dumbledore's Order, somewhere where he could finally do some good.

Mary looks radiant when he finds her, a scarlet and gold Gryffindor scarf wrapped around her neck. The setting light makes her look like she's on fire, and Benjy takes a moment to carve that image in his memory.

 _(he does this now – carves people's image in his memory so as to never forget them)_

 _(that's how he keeps Fabian and Gideon's – the two twins, laughing at some joke they had played on Mad-Eye, the way Fabian smiled when Benjy finally got his Patronus to work and the way Gideon always looked fiercer when he dueled)_

 _(it's not a lot, but it's something)_

"You look good, Mary," he tells her as they sit down in the terrace. "I mean it, really. You seem… better."

Mary looks away, and for an instant Benjy glimpses the same brokenness he sees in the mirror every morning.

 _(it seems it's all this war ever does – break people)_

"Thank you," she replies with a shaky smile. "I think sometimes I even feel like it."

Benjy nods in understanding even as they both order.

"I missed you," he finally says.

Mary grabs the hand he left on the table, and squeezes it tight. "I missed you too," she says back, and it sounds like a confession. "I'm sorry."

Benjy squeezes back. "I know you are. I'm sorry too. I wish things could have turned out differently."

Mary lets out a bark of bitter laughter. "I wish I could be brave like you, that I could fight the way you do, I just-" She snatches her hand away and runs it through her hair with the air of a woman torn.

"It's not you, I know that," Benjy tries to calm her with. "Remember? We've talked about this."

"Then why did you ask me to come here? Where we used to-"

"-come every week when we were still together?" Benjy finishes for her, a wistful smile on his lips. "I told you: I missed you. I just… I wanted to see you. I needed to see that you were alright after everything that happened."

'Everything' is Marlene's death. She had been one of Mary's best friends, and Mary had been the one to find them, Apparating to her house only to find Voldemort's Mark glowing an acid green above it.

Her eyes soften. "Thank you," she says warmly. "But… You know that this doesn't mean we can get back together, right?"

He knows. Merlin, how he knows. "We can still be friends though, can't we?"

Mary laughs, and it reminds him of better days – when they were younger, freer, innocent still. "Of course we can."

 _(they had been great together – madly in love the way only teenagers ever are, but Benjy had fire in his blood that demanded he fight while Mary simply couldn't, and eventually the golden haze of passion had faded just enough to let them see that they would be better off apart, at least until the war ended)_

They stay there until well after dark, ordering more and more ice-cream, tasting flavors they hadn't yet dared to try. For a while, it feels just like old times, their laughter echoing in the air, rushes of blood coloring their cheeks scarlet.

And when they part, they leave feeling slightly more hopeful than they did before.

He will never get back home.

Death, he knows now, wears a black cloak and a skull mask, and its raised wand flashing an angry scarlet is the last thing Benjy's eyes ever see.

 _(Benjy always knew he wouldn't see the war end)_


End file.
